Now She Tells Us

AFTER THE “stunning” loss of a special congressional election in Mississippi, many Republicans are “stunned.” Really, writes Peggy Noonan. On her reckoning:

You have to be stupid to be stunned by that... Most party leaders in Washington are stupid – detached, played out, stuck in the wisdom they learned when they were coming up, in ’78 or ’82 or ’94... In politics especially, the first lesson sticks.

What Republicans should have done is broken with Bush back in 2005, or ’06, or ’07, Noonan advises. It’s a bit late now. Anyway,

"Members and pundits . . . fail to understand the deep seated antipathy toward the president, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia in a 20-page memo to House GOP leaders.

I’ll say. You can say that the war is now going well, that the economy ain’t so bad. You can say that the gas prices are high because Democrats have stood on the drill rig platform for twenty years forbidding exploration for oil. You can say that the foreclosures are an ineviable result of half a century of housing subsidies.

But that is beside the point. It all happened on Bush’s watch and so the Democrats are going to run on the idea that voting for McCain is voting for a third term for Bush and his mistakes. You can’t argue with that!

In my view we must stop all this defeatism. Of course the conservative brand is badly burned right now. Of course Republicans deserve to be soundly defeated. Of course the American people think it is “time for a change.” But we’ll be back, and sooner than you think.

Conservatives believe that it is time to radically downsize the government role in education. Democrats believe that it is time to expand government education with universal pre-school.

Conservatives believe that it is time to crank down the huge government role in health care, getting most people to pay directly for routine health care. Democrats want to extend government power in health care by forcing everyone to carry health insurance.

Conservatives believe we should prospect for oil and gas, and that we should respond to any global warming by adaptation. Democrats believe we need swingeing taxes and regulation and subsidy to transform the energy economy.

Conservatives believe that we should reduce the government preseence in the social safety net, and that we should re-empower the mediating institutions of family, church, association, and neighborhood. Democrats believe we should normalize gay marriage.

These are huge differences, and both sides cannot be right. Each approach implies a vastly different approach to government and society.

Conservatives believe that we are right and that the liberals are wrong. What is more we believe that the Democratic path will lead to serious economic and social dislocation. We believe that it is not a question of “if” but “when” America gets a clue and realizes that we are right about the major issues of our time.

Win or lose in November these issues will define the politics of the next fifty years. Therefore we should not lose heart and give into despair.

Be not afraid.

Oh, and Peggy. Could you think of something helpful to contribute to the conservative narrative?

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

TAGS

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Hugo on Genius

“Tear down theory, poetic systems� No more rules, no more models� Genius conjures up rather than learns� ” —Victor Hugo
C�sar Gra�a, Bohemian versus Bourgeois

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Postmodernism

A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ’merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy

Faith and Politics

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable... [1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Religion, Property, and Family

But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family. Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

US Life in 1842

Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

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